Tech news: KPMG Digital Gateway adds gen AI capacities

KPMG Digital Gateway adds gen AI capacities

The offices of KPMG LLP in the Canary Wharf business and shopping district in London

Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

Big Four firm KPMG has enhanced the capabilities of its Digital Gateway for Tax by incorporating generative AI. The solution allows clients to use the Digital Gateway as their centralized knowledge hub, and also included the ability for users to upload documents, including tax documents, for generative AI analysis; export of AI-generated data directly to emails and PowerPoint slides, with a feature for premium users to employ branded template; access both pre-configured and customizable virtual assistants for a range of tasks, from regulation exploration to personalized learning aids; collaborate with KPMG to develop virtual assistants tailored to the requirements of the user's tax department; and access to specialized training programs to foster proficiency in leveraging AI for tax-related tasks.

Deloitte launches vendor-neutral CyberSphere platform

The Deloitte offices in London

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Big Four firm Deloitte launched CyberSphere, a services and solutions platform to help clients simplify their organizations' cyber program data, workflow, reporting and third-party technologies. The platform offers clients new ways to visualize cyber risk metrics and workflows, and a curated set of modular capabilities supported by third-party technology providers augmented by Deloitte services. Modules initially powered by CyberSphere will include digital identity management, managed extended detection and response (MXDR), attack surface management (ASM), managed secure access services edge (MSASE) and incident response. Future iterations of CyberSphere will include additional modules.

Acumatica releases new features, including for finance and CRM solutions

Business solutions provider Acumatica added a host of new features to its products as part of the first of its twice-annual product releases. Among the changes is the ability to streamline point-of-sale payment transaction processing by using credit card readers to record payments directly from the Acumatica solution without third-party software. Users can automate vacation and sick time tracking, and use Acumatica Payments, a new feature launched in 2023 R2, that streamlines payment processes for things like credit card payments, bill processing and field service payments; and tailor email templates by branch for CRM, project, service management and subcontract communication. Users can also calculate ratios and improve reporting flexibility using generic inquiry results as input to other inquiries; use no-code workflow creation with new sequential actions independent of conditions; and gain access to developer preview of the product's new UI. There were also enhancements to the company's solutions for retail and commerce, distribution, manufacturing and construction.

SAP enhances Concur Travel, Expense as well as gen AI capacity

Stephan Daub

SAP Concur announced at its 2024 Fusion conference new enhancements to Concur Travel and Concur Expense, as well as new generative AI capacities added to its other solutions. Concur Travel users can now view and sort the greenhouse gas emissions of each flight segment, as well as rail and car rental options, and browse hotel providers by emissions, certifications and sustainability scores. They can also use Concur Request to automate spend requests and approvals; and receive notifications for things like extreme weather events, political unrest or communications difficulties. Enhancements to Concur Expense, undertaken through a partnership with Mastercard, include automatic expense entry, itemization and categorization with ExpenseIt; a timeline view of expenses; notifications such as missing receipts, missing attendees or expense reports; attendee suggestions based on expense type and amount; and automated expense creation for Mastercard transactions. The solution also includes a new Data Delivery Service, which provides customers direct access to their Concur Expense data flows without manual reports or downloads. The company also announced generative AI-based enhancements to Concur Request, which now uses generative AI to provide cost estimates for trip planning. ExpenseIt now taps into AI to automatically create a new expense with several key fields prepopulated, as well as automatically itemize hotel folios. Concur Support now allows customers to type questions in natural language and get answers using generative AI without having to submit a support ticket.

Financial Cents tackles uncategorized client transactions

Confused geometry shape of wood blocks on the left rearrange in the same category on the right, category concept

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Workflow solutions provider Financial Cents added a new feature called ReCats to address uncategorized transactions with spreadsheets and emails. Financial Cents ReCats automatically pulls client's uncategorized transactions from QuickBooks; sends auto-reminders to get clients to respond to uncategorized transaction enquiries; collects notes, descriptions and documents from clients related to each uncategorized transaction; and categorizes transactions within Financial Cents and pushes uncategorized transactions to QuickBooks. Clients can also access ReCats via Financial Cents' integrated client portal.

Chime now offers in-app tax filing

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Mobile banking app Chime has announced that after early success with its pilot launch, an all-new tax feature is now available to millions more Chime members. Members can file both state and federal taxes for free directly through the Chime app. Eligible members will receive an in-app notification to let them know they're eligible to use the tax-filing experience as part of the pilot. To offer this new feature, Chime partnered with Column Tax and april, registered tax e-file providers, to provide eligible members with the opportunity to file their personal state and federal tax returns directly through the Chime app. Chime plans to roll out this in-app tax filing feature to all members for the 2024 tax year.

Partnerships and integrations

WorkWave, a provider of SaaS business lifecycle software solutions, announced strategic partnerships with Wisetack, which offers pay-over-time for home services, and global embedded financing platform, YouLend. WorkWave customers will be able to use Wisetack to offer their end customers pay-over-time financing options for larger purchases. Meanwhile, WorkWave's partnership with YouLend will provide its customers with access to additional capital buying power, combined with repayment options. … Business automation solutions provider Quadient is expanding its Quadient Experience Partner Program, previously focused on CCM solutions, to include the company's financial automation solutions. By expanding its program to include partners of Quadient's cloud solutions for accounts payable and accounts receivable automation, the company aims to accelerate the contribution of partners to its growth in cloud solutions, with increased emphasis on subscriptions and services. The partner program expansion is designed to enable partners to access pre-built integrations with the company's accounting and ERP solutions. … CoinLedger, a crypto tax-reporting platform, has partnered with MetaMask, a Web3 self-custody wallet provider. Users of MetaMask Portfolio now have the ability to sync their MetaMask transaction history with CoinLedger to enable automatic tax reporting. … Finance automation solutions provider Aptitude Software has expanded its strategy to deliver AI-powered Autonomous Finance in collaboration with Microsoft, specifically via an integration with Dynamics 365. This will allow the delivery of capacities such as real-time forecasting and advance scenario planning, enhanced risk management and anomaly detection, and regulation impact analysis and compliance. Aptitude Fynapse is already available in the Azure Marketplace and fully integrates with Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management applications. ... Enterprise monetization solutions provider MonetizeNow announced the availability of tax integrations with solutions from Avalara and Anrok. MonetizeNow customers can now add sales tax and VAT to invoices based on their individual nexus. ... Big Four firm Deloitte announced it is working with Nvidia to help clients integrate advanced cyber artificial intelligence models and capabilities into their cybersecurity solutions. Deloitte and Nvidia will build customized frameworks and develop use cases focused on improved efficiencies, decreasing time to identify issues and potential adversarial activity.

Other news

ServiceNow, a workflow software provider, has signed an agreement to acquire 4Industry, a Netherlands‑based partner whose manufacturing technology application is built on the Now Platform, and has completed the acquisition of Smart Daily Management, a connected digital worker application from Big Four firm EY. The technology from 4Industry and the Smart Daily Management application will be utilized to build a new Connected Worker solution on the ServiceNow platform, expected in 2025. The news follows the acquisitions of UltimateSuite, G2K, Atrinet's NetACE technology and Element AI by ServiceNow. … Carbon accounting platform Greenly announced a $52 million Series B funding round led by Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, two years after a successful $23 million Series A. In addition to Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, this funding round includes new investors such as BGV (Benhamou Global Ventures), Move Capital, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HSBC, while existing partners like XAnge and Energy Impact Partners reaffirmed their support for Greenly. Brian Halligan, co-founder and chairperson of HubSpot, also participated in the round. … Corvee, a small and midsized business solutions provider, announced the release of home office deduction filing guidelines in Instead and Instead Pro. Users can leverage Instead to determine home office eligibility and estimate savings; add home office expenses; build or upload a home office policy; and select a tax calculation method. … Paystand, a solutions provider for blockchain-enabled B2B payments, has won the DeFi Innovation category in the 2024 Fintech Breakthrough Awards. More than 4,000 fintech nominations were submitted for this competition.

Tech news: KPMG adds gen AI to Digital Gateway